November 14 Another Tuesday

Tuesday:  SO ... we had our first SNOWfall today! It was intense earlier in the morning and I think we probably had 2" accumulate out here north of Grand Rapids. I only snapped one picture (with my phone) when I picked Erin up from school.

 The children, naturally, were very excited about it. When I picked Cal up I talked to him about the snow, but he corrected me (several times) and told me: "NO, wain!" Evidently Mr. Cal has his own definition of rain and snow ... okay then.

Erin enjoyed looking through this Meijer holiday flyer and deciding that she would like one of everything ... for Christmas ... for her birthday ... just because!

What Erin most enjoyed about the time at my house today was making items of jewelry for herself, me, and our stuffed animals.

She got such a charge out of choosing colors and shapes ...

Little Cal wasn't a single bit interested in any of that stuff whatsoever ...

Here is Edith (the elephant) telling Erin how much she liked the little necklace that was made especially for her ... Erin was very pleased that Edith liked her creation.

Look at Erin's dear face ... I love her so much.

Having had such success at her first two attempts, she was right back at the table creating more ...

Cal, who is 100% in love with cars, kept close by making all sorts of revving engine sounds ...

... he is really good at it too.

We decided to turn the piano on "Lessons" so that it would play a bunch of songs for us, and the kids had fun plunking along on the piano to whatever tune was playing ... Not sure exactly why Erin is licking our triangle striker ...

Mr. Cal definitely likes his volume up LOUD ... like ... through the ceiling. I kept turning it down until he screamed in that very high-pitched scream of his. Then I simply shut the piano off and closed the keyboard. Bad option.

Once he no longer could play the piano, he increased the volume of his scream until I thought sure he would break lightbulbs around here. So we negotiated. I would allow him to play again if ... IF ... we kept the volume moderate. This was somewhat agreed upon ... I had to keep walking by and sneaking the volume lower ... but this went unnoticed by our musician.

Cal was very into the songbook and the overhead light ...

Looking at this picture (below) you would never ever guess how ferocious this little child can be ...

Here he is in his "A Star is Born" pose ...

His "Bluesy" look ...

Yikes, Cal. You've stolen grandma's heart. Please make me an album of your stuff some day ... preferably before I leave this world ...

Since the roads were snow-covered still, we left 5 minutes earlier to pick Aidan up from school. We arrived safely and scooped Aidan up without any problems. Erin and Cal were soundly sleeping once again and stayed that way until we drove into their driveway. It was a process getting all of them into the house with all of their stuff ... but we were eventually IN. 

Poor Aidan, however, was quite sickly. He immediately took off his coat, put down his backpack and went to the basement bean bag, covered himself with a blanket and that is where he stayed until his folks came home. His little face was SO sad.

Brendan came home at his usual time with NO homework--yes! He hung out in the basement with Aidan for awhile. I cuddled with the little kids on the main floor until they could properly wake up, which they finally did. Dylan and Kelly came home with pizza, we ate and played some more. Aidan was too sick to play and Dylan got him tucked in upstairs a little earlier than usual--Aidan wasn't pleased about it, but it was probably for the best. 

The two littlest and I played a game of "Animal, Animal 1-2-3!" in their front room. It was so funny to see them pretend to be a T-Rex, turtle, bunny rabbit, tiger, kangaroo, etc. I was happy and surprised to see how much little Cal got into this game. We'll have to play it again soon!